Flip-Flop
by GoddessApostle
Summary: Maka scowls at the tag on her shirt, the one that crushes her dreams of being the greatest meister ever, the one with 'Weapon' scrawled across the top.


**A/N: Hey! I wrote this? Um, I've been interested in reverse Soul Eater AUs for a while so I tried to write one lol. I'm trying to think of how the others would fit in if I wanted to continue it. Just the students though. The adults stay as they are.**

 **Also the first half, Soul's half, feels really weird when compared to the second half, but I wrote that and some of the second half months ago and finished it last night, so if it's that obvious, that's why.**

* * *

Soul could always tell when someone was near. There were few times anyone was able to actually startle him. Not even his brother, with his light steps and even lighter breathing, could sneak up on him. Soul always blamed his family. Well, not _them,_ per se, but their occupation. His musical family gave him sensitive ears that could pick up on the slightest sounds, no matter how small. He already blamed them for his monotonous life; what was one extra strong sense compared to that?

He's practicing when it's finally brought up.

Soul had been playing his piano for so long the notes rang in his ears. Wes and his mother step into the room from the door to his back, and without turning to face them, he slides to the side so Wes can join him in a duet. When they are done, his mother dismisses Wes and takes his spot on the bench. She taps out a few loose notes before asking "How did you know we were here?"

Soul shrugs. "I guess I heard you."

Without warning, Madame Evans plays the song he was practicing before she interrupted him. She plays it just as he did, every note falling where it should, but it sounds amazing from her fingers - he sounds like a toddler compared to her. But that is not the point she's trying to make. What she wants is to show him the volume of the song. How loud it was when it was him playing it. And when she reaches the point where he let off, she winds down with a few extra notes that don't belong.

"You heard us through that?" His mother seems amused, and it annoys him. She ruffles his hair affectionately before continuing. "I don't think you're hearing us, Soul. We're not making as much noise as you think." He just gives her a blank look. Of course they were, otherwise he wouldn't know they were there. He tells her this, and she smiles and shakes her head. "You've heard stories of psychics, haven't you? ESP and the like, right?"

He scoffs. "They're bogus. Just people that are good at reading other people."

"Maybe." She chuckles. "But there are people who can do it. Are you sure you can hear us? Or is it more of a feeling that you get?"

Soul searches his memories. When he was practicing, at a recital, listening to music thundering through his headphones - all the times he knew there was someone approaching him, without eyes or ears or knowledge. It _was_ more of a feeling than anything else, and just like that, a piece of the world clicks into something he can't quite make out yet.

He eyes his mother, who has been sitting silently while he ponders this. "How would you know anything about this?" he asks her when her smile becomes unbearable.

Her smile turns sad. "I used to do it, too, but the ability's faded from me. I suppose I traded it for my talent in music." She tries to joke, but Soul doesn't laugh, doesn't even smile. Instead, he scowls deeper. She clears her throat and starts again. "What I mean is, it runs in the family. My brother could do it, too, but he didn't let it fade. He practiced it until it became something of a weapon for him. He claims he can see into a person's very soul, now. I'm not sure if I believe it, but I think it would be better if you developed whatever this sixth sense is, don't you?"

Soul bristles. So this is it. His mother is finally giving up on him. His failure in music had reached the point that his mother felt he should give up.

Madame Evans stands behind him and wraps her arms around his neck, dissipating his doubts with her touch. "I think your music is beautiful, Soul. I want you to continue it, if that's what you want. But it's not making you happy, not like it is us. If you'd rather pursue another path, I _will_ support you. The new school year is coming up. I can send you to the school my brother graduated from, if you want. It's something to consider." Her arms leave his shoulders and she opens the door.

Soul stops her with a question. "Where is it?"

"In the United States. Nevada, I believe."

Soul grins. "Perfect."

* * *

Maka wanted to be a great meister, like her mother. A meister. _A meister,_ not a weapon.

It hadn't always been that way. When she was younger, she would have been fine with either. She trained for either position, strengthening both her body (in case she wielded a weapon) and her soul (in case she became one) ever since she was young. It wasn't until she was nine that she decided she wanted to be a meister only, thanks to her womanizing father.

It was his fault Mama wanted to leave, after all. His sneaking around had ignited a scornful wrath inside her mother, and though it rarely reared its head when Maka was around, she could tell from the way her mother moved, jerky and aggressive, that her father was out with another woman. Maka could see it, could almost tell when her mother would have enough and explode. In fact, she predicted the day her mother would snap.

There wasn't a big confrontation, an argument, or an explosion. There wasn't even a slammed door. There was just her mother and a suitcase and a hand smoothing Maka's hair as she was on the brink of waking. "You're so strong, Maka," a voice whispered, "you're so much stronger than me or your father." Lips met her forehead in a tender touch, and by the time she was fully awake, her mother was gone.

From that day, she despised the idea of being a weapon, of being like her father in any way whatsoever. She would become a meister, like her mother, and she would make her partner the strongest Death Scythe the world had ever known.

The irony was not lost on her when she tried to squish a bug and stabbed it instead. The damn thing had snuck up on her, crawled across her leg before jumping to the coffee table she was resting her feet on. She yelped, jumped, and started slamming her hand down on it. The realization that she was bare-handed only occurred to her after her hand smacked the table and there were spider guts all over her palm. Except...

It wasn't her hand that was on the table. Instead there was a blade that skewered the bug through its abdomen - a blade as dark as night, extending from the table to her elbow.

Needless to say, Maka was furious. She spent the rest of that week cursing her father for his strong genes. It was only a month before school started, after all, and her plans were just crushed by him.

So now she stands at the entrance of the DWMA, a week before classes start, and she's wearing that stupid name tag with that stupid _'Weapon'_ scrawled across the top. Lord Death stands just inside the door, greeting the newcomers as they enter and giving them the gist of the rules for the next seven days - it almost sounds like he wants them to participate in trust falls and speed-dating to "find the perfect match for your Weapon and/or Meister partner!" Maka scowls at the other weapons around her and stares longingly at all the 'Meister' tags she can see. If she's being honest, she'd like to try being her own meister, if that makes sense. She'd only need to change her arm into a scythe and surely she could learn to fight like that, but her mother insisted (through her letters, of course) that she at least _try_ to find a partner.

Lord Death greets her with nothing more than a salute, and she's thankful that's all he does. She just wants to get this over with and knows how he loves to talk - she's known him all her life, after all. She's run through the halls of the school and she's watched the first week of each new year for as long as she can remember. She doesn't need anyone pointing out that her previous dream of being the greatest meister ever was now shattered by the label on her shirt. Of course her father is too over-the-moon to care.

He waves to her from across the room, his eyes shiny and brimming with tears as he spots her. He starts toward her, shouting for her to stay put, he needs a picture, he wants to talk about how to shift, blah blah blah. She shoots him a glare and stomps towards the hall. It's supposed to be off-limits for now, since the school is big and confusing and no one wants to go hunting for any new students that got lost in its labyrinthine corridors. But Maka knows where she's going, and she knows where to hide to escape her father's relentless pursuit.

She slips into a thin hall that's half hidden behind a message board and runs up a flight of stairs to the second floor main hallway. She slows down, sure she's lost him, when she hears the faint trickle of a piano drifting through the air. Curious, she follows it, trying to pick out the direction it's coming from. She knows it's not Black Star or any of her other childhood friends - they don't know how to play any instruments. That means this person is probably new, and probably lost, and most importantly, some stranger to hang out with until this hellish day was over with and then never see again except in passing.

She may still be bitter about being a weapon, and she may go without a meister despite her mother's advice, and she may be feeling somewhat antisocial now because of that.

But the music intrigues her. As she gets closer, she can decipher a melody - a rough, jagged, broken one that rises and falls in time to her breathing. She can hear a quieter melody beneath, just as broken as the louder one, and it taps along with her footsteps. Listening to them at the same time is an experience, and it seems intimate. The two melodies interlock in intricate waves - where one is weak, the other is strong; where one is soft, the other loud. It is an utterly jarring thing, the way the notes seem to float carelessly and then sting without warning.

Maka listens closely, her heart beating in time to it, and she's not sure why she hesitates outside the closed door of the music room.

Her hand is on the door, ready to push, but she doesn't. She doesn't want to disturb whoever is in there, she's not sure she wants to know. She doesn't understand music anyway, and she doesn't want to bother the person behind the door with her questions. It's as her hand falls that the song fades and a voice calls to her.

"Come on in," the person says, his cool voice in stark contrast to his music. Maka opens the door and peeks in before she enters, her hands behind her back.

"That was really..." She struggles for a word, trying to think back to her elementary music lessons. "Cool." Cool is the best she can come up with? Really? _Way to go, Maka!_

The boy at the piano shrugs. "I guess." He's silent for a moment before asking, "What are you doing up here? I thought this floor was closed so us newbies don't get lost."

Maka shrugs. "Running away from my dad." The boy quirks an eyebrow at that, but she continues before he can ask. "And I grew up here. I know this place inside and out."

"This is a pretty big place to have memorized."

"Yep." Maka's smile widens. "But it's helped me keep my title of Hide-and-Seek champion since I was six."

The boy laughs and holds out his hand. "I'm Soul," he says, his eyes crinkling as he smirks.

"Maka." She shakes his hand, and they share a mischievous look. His gaze flickers to her chest, to her 'Weapon' tag, and she peels the offending sticker off her shirt before crumpling it and throwing it in the garbage can at the front of the room. Soul holds up his own marker, flashing the word 'Meister' before it disappears into his fist and joins hers in the wastebasket.

* * *

 **A/N:The ending feels kind of weak but I like it :)**

 **I feel like it's obvious but can anyone tell who Soul's mom is referring to when she talks about her brother?**


End file.
